“It’s not as good as it looks,” Jake told him. “She snoops in men’s windows and once she smashed my pizza.”
“She don’t look violent,” the guy said.
“Looks can be deceiving.”
Berry turned on her heel and stomped down the stairs. She was all the way to the foyer before Jake caught up with her.
“That was embarrassing,” Berry said to Jake.
“Yeah, but he gave me a nice pity tip,” Jake said. “We might have something here.” Jake opened the downstairs door and stared at the empty street. “Where’s the car?”
It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Jake and Berry trudged through the front door of his house. They silently made their way to the kitchen and began fixing a midnight snack of gigantic proportions. They carried the contents of the refrigerator to the round oak table and in the silvery light of moonbeams scoffed down pickles, sandwiches, ice cream, potato salad, and a pint of strawberries.
Jake pushed back from the table while Berry picked at the last strawberry.
“It’s okay,” Jake said. “I’ll rent a new car in the morning. The police were pretty reasonable, considering that’s the second car we’ve had stolen in less than a week.”
“In less than a week I’ve squashed a Jeep, I’ve had two cars stolen, and my apartment’s been charbroiled.” And I’ve almost been robbed at gunpoint, she silently added. “Do you think someone’s trying to tell me something?”
Jake shrugged. “That’s just the negative side. What about the plus side?”
“What have I got on the plus side?”
“Our friendship.”
Berry’s heart got happy. Jake Sawyer thought their friendship was important. Imagine that. He liked her! He really liked her. She thought about their earlier conversation in the basement and his cavalier assumption that they’d get married. Was he serious? She rolled her eyes. Of course not! You don’t just come out and announce to a woman that you’re going to marry her and have a hundred kids and community property pizza. Besides, he’d had plenty of time to continue the conversation in the car on the way back to his house, but he’d never raised the subject. A wave of disappointment washed over her. Oh, great, she thought with a grimace. Disappointment. I’m in big trouble here. My emotional clock is not in tune with my plan.
She would have to be strong. She would refuse to fall in love-and if she already was in love she would refuse to admit it. What she needed was some good old-fashioned hostility. A mean streak to cover up all those cozy feelings.
Jake took her hand in his and tenderly kissed the inside of her wrist.
Berry snatched her hand away. “Don’t kiss my wrist.”
“Okay. What would you like me to kiss?”
“I don’t want you to kiss anything.”
“What a load of baloney.” He took her hand back and kissed the soft center of her palm. “How about if I kiss your-”
“Don’t you dare!”
He sucked on the tip of her index finger. “Can I kiss it in the shower?”
“We’re not taking a shower. Stop that!” She swallowed hard when he resumed the sucking, this time touching his tongue to the tip of her finger. She bopped him on the side of the head with a bag of bread. “I said stop that.”
“Playing hard to get, huh?”
“I’m not playing anything.” Berry stood at the table. “You’re going to have to go home.”
“I am home.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She carted the pickle jars and packages of lunchmeat to the refrigerator, feeling like the village idiot. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing. She was too inexperienced, too overwhelmed by his sexuality, too easily flustered by her own attraction to him.
Upstairs a door creaked open, and one of the ladies padded down the carpeted hall to the bathroom.
Jake put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher. “I’ll bet you a dollar it’s Mrs. Dugan. I can tell by that authoritarian
“Mrs. Dugan’s keeping her eye on you.”
“I know. She has her radar tuned to the sound of lips meeting.” He pulled Berry into the circle of his arms. “I think we should put it to a test. Let’s see how fast we can get Mrs. Dugan out of the bathroom.”
She really shouldn’t be kissing him, she thought, but this was sort of a scientific experiment. Who was she to stand in the way of science?
“This is the first of the good-night kisses,” Jake told her. His warm lips brushed hers, and his hands splayed across her lower back, pressing her gently into him. When he spoke, his voice whispered into her mouth. “There are all kinds of good-night kisses. There are good-night kisses when you’re done making love and you know it’s been a very special night.” He kissed the sensitive spot just below her ear and moved his hand to her breast. “And there are good-night kisses that are the prelude to making love. Kisses that are hungry and impatient.” His hand tightened slightly.
The bathroom door opened and feet traversed the upstairs hallway, stopping at the head of the stairs. “Somebody down there?”
“It’s just us, Mrs. Dugan,” Jake answered. “We were having a bite to eat before coming to bed.”
“It’s late. It’s time nice young ladies were in bed.”
“I’m trying,” Jake sighed.
“Alone!”
“Why couldn’t you adopt a bunch of old ladies who were hard of hearing?” Jake asked Berry.
Berry smiled in spite of herself. “And then there are good-night kisses that simply say, Good night.”
Chapter Six
He was doing it again. He was dressing in front of her. The man was a flaming exhibitionist. Berry huddled under her covers and listened to the sounds of buttons and zippers. He had no modesty. He had no scruples.
“Aren’t you dressed yet?” she asked.
“Why don’t you come out from under those covers and find out?”
Berry didn’t have to come out from under the covers. She knew he wasn’t dressed. She could tell by the goose bumps on her arm. Damn him, anyway.
“Why do you have to get dressed in my room?”
“Because this is my room, too. Because this is where my clothes are. Because there are little old ladies occupying both bathrooms, and I’m in a hurry this morning. Because I get my kicks this way, and with Mrs. Dugan around kicks are hard to come by-you have to take them when you can.” He pulled the covers back and kissed her forehead. “You should have looked. It would have been a lot more fun.”
He was wearing gray slacks, and a blue button-down shirt. Berry watched him move to his closet and select a tie from a well-stocked rack. “Did you really want me to look?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You would have been the only one undressed. Wouldn’t you have been embarrassed?”
“Yeah. That’s the fun part. You know what happens when men get embarrassed? They get-”
“I know what they get. And you’d better not!”
He gave his tie a small tug and turned to face her. “What do you think? Do I look like a first-grade teacher?”
Berry thought he looked more like a fully clothed model for a Chippendale’s calendar. She sat up in bed and told her heart to stop jumping around like that. He was just a man, for goodness’ sake. An ordinary man wearing a pair of pants that were perfectly tailored across his slim hips and nifty butt. An ordinary man wearing a shirt that was
